NEWBURYPORT — While visitors and residents stroll through the downtown, three police cameras on Inn Street track them as they walk their dogs, converse with friends and acquaintances, and stop to admire something in a shop window. Soon, a fourth camera will be installed, with the City Council's recent approval of transfer of funds to pay for it.
In the age of technology, when cameras are becoming more commonplace for such purposes, Councilor Ed Cameron is seeking to ink a new law into the city's ordinances that will require no more be erected for surveillance of the public without getting a review and permission of the mayor and City Council.
"All I want is for there to be some type of public input every time there's going to be a permanent camera installed for surveillance purposes," Cameron said.
Newburyport is not alone in its desire to use cameras as a means of safeguarding the public, as supporters of a recent move to install a fourth camera on Inn Street pointed out. European cities are embracing the low-cost alternative of using cameras as a way to reduce police patrols, and hundreds of U.S. cities and towns have implemented the practice as a means of identifying criminal conduct in public spaces and catching red-light runners in the act.
While Cameron supported installation of a fourth camera, he pointed out last night that residents of many cities and towns where they've been implemented have had no control over their use. He'd like to change that for Newburyport.
"Some communities — big metro cities like Chicago and New York — have thousands of cameras," Cameron said. "In Chicago, there has been very little input into that."
Cameron's proposed ordinance amendment would ensure "no camera shall be permanently placed for the purpose of surveillance, by any city department in any public place, without permission of the mayor and City Council."
The proposal was accepted and referred to the Public Safety Committee for further review, where Cameron said it will be examined for its language to ensure it can't interfere with law enforcement.
While nobody is suggesting the city will strive toward more, Cameron noted that the first three cameras installed downtown were put through no public process, since none was required.
"The only reason the council weighed in on (the fourth camera) was because it was a requested transfer," Cameron said. "The previous ones were paid for with a grant. I did vote for the Inn Street camera, and I thought that was reasonable. There were some downtown residents who wanted that."
Residents and business owners had made the request for an additional camera to catch what's going on in the alleyway abutting two circular stairwells on Inn Street, where residents access their homes, and which often serves as a hidden enclave for kids to gather.
"Ninety percent of the kids are not causing problems, but there was some activity there in the alley," Cameron said. "You can't send a cruiser down there, and it's a hard place to patrol."
But Cameron felt the debate over installation of the camera did bring up some concerns about the use of cameras in the future. With webcams mounted on people's home computers, companies like Google making use of technology to broadcast roadside views of people's homes to the masses, and tourist organizations offering real-time views of favorite vistas and locales 24 hours a day, the amount of time people are spending on camera without their knowledge is unknowable. In fact, at least one camera, operated by a real estate company, broadcasts people's comings and goings in Newburyport's Market Square live over the Internet.
"It feels a little funny," Cameron said.
What Cameron is hoping fellow councilors embrace is a move to control the use of them in the public sector.
"It's important for citizens just to have some input," he said.
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